


fling thing ding

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2010 [7]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Burn Notice
Genre: Cracky, F/M, Fluffy, Idiots in Love, Romance, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:22:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Idiots in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fling thing ding

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** bloodied_saint asked for BtVS/Burn Notice, Buffy/Michael, _It’s easier to kiss you than to tell you how I feel._
> 
> 2010 repost.

.

They have a fling.

At least that’s how it starts. Her in a bikini, him in a butt-ugly Hawaiian shirt, both aiming to relax on a Spanish beach, even if it kills them. Which, even though they don’t know that about each other then, is a very real possibility for both. Wouldn’t be the first time someone shot a cocktail out of Michael’s hand. Wouldn’t be the first time someone slipped Buffy a drug to sacrifice her to their god.

That’s just how it goes.

So, a fling. Two weeks between the sheets and in bars, on dance floors, back between the sheets. They switch their cell phones off and only check their missed calls when the other is in the shower.

During the first week, they run into a vampire about to kill a German girl. Buffy slays and Michael watches, wide-eyed but not scared. Three days later a few guys with guns try to rob them and he takes them out at record speed, takes the guns apart without looking and scatters the pieces all over their prone bodies. She’d never admit it, but damn, that’s a turn on.

Then their two weeks are up and they go their separate ways.

Three months later it stops being a fling and becomes something that’s almost a thing because you don’t drop everything and get on a red-eye to Hong Kong for a fling. That’s something you do for a thing, Buffy thinks even as she packs her bags and writes Dawn a note. But she does it anyway and from then on, she calls it their _thling_. 

A fling that’s not quite a thing. A thing that’s more than a fling. Whichever explanation you like better.

They split up again a week later and that’s the beginning of a routine that lasts for years. When one of them has some down time, or just finished a really crappy job, they’ll call the other and they’ll hook up somewhere. In-between she dates whoever strikes her fancy and Michael meets this gun-crazy chick in Ireland and it’s on again, off again, but she sees the look in his eyes when he talks about her. He loves that Fiona woman, whoever she is.

Buffy doesn’t take offense. That might sound cynic, but she’s had her chances and she’s had her loves. She loved Angel and she loved Spike and in her way, she loved Riley, too. She’s only in her twenties, but it feels like she’s had all the loves she’s going to get in this life. 

Now? Now she has _thlings_. 

And then Michael gets burned. She finds that funny, because anyone else would get iced, but no, super secret spies get _burned_. The word isn’t wrong though, judging from how badly it screws with him. Stuck in Miami, practically helpless. He’s used to having money and guns and always at least three escape routes.

So she decides to be nice and raids two of his Swiss bank accounts that he may or may not know she knows exist and throws the money into five separate, new accounts. She’s gotten a lot better at managing money over the years and Michael taught her enough dirty tricks to confuse any bureaucrat. Then she gets on another red-eye to Miami, finds his address and jumps him when he gets home.

She might eat his last yoghurt while she’s waiting, but he can’t prove that. He hugs her back, twirls her around, laughs and sets her back on her feet. And then he introduces her to Fiona, who is glaring daggers at her.

And Buffy knows the _thling_ is over. 

He takes them both out to dinner and they bond over old war stories about blowing things up. She likes Fiona. 

After dinner, the older woman has somewhere to be and Buffy and Michael go back to his place. They walk because this is Miami and the weather is nice. It reminds her of a Spanish beach and two weeks between the sheets. She wants to tell him that she loved those two weeks, that she remembers them fondly. Wants to tell him that he’s been good for her, never asking more than she had to give, never demanding. Wants to tell him that he’s going to be just fine and that they’ll be friends, even after he sends her packing. 

And he will, in a few minutes.

She wants to tell him that everything’s okay between them and that she’s grateful for the time they had, for how he managed to make her laugh when she wasn’t quite sure she remembered how anymore, way back when. 

In the end, she doesn’t say a word of all that. She passes him the folded sheet of paper with the details of his new bank accounts on them and smiles when he swoops in for another hug, happy and relieved to have a bit of his freedom back. She shrugs. All it cost her were a few hours and some patience and he could never have reached those accounts on his own. Not anymore. 

In hindsight, it makes for a pretty neat going away present.

She shrugs out of his hug with a giggle and a poke to his ribs and then leans up to kiss him, pouring all those things into it. It’s easier and, she thinks, fitting. They’ve never talked much, at least not about things like this, and they’re both more the action type.

The kiss says it all, really.

He bumps their foreheads together afterwards, smiles at her, almost cross-eyed with looking at her from so close. She ruffles his hair, gives him one last peck on the lips and walks away.

It started as a fling, this thing that’s a _thling_ , and it may have grown and changed, but it ends the way it started. Easy and a bit bittersweet and with smiles.

She’s surprisingly okay with that. 

.


End file.
